The Allegheny Institute's Jake Haulk and Frank Gamrat chide the Pennsylvania Board of Education for spending $650,000 of taxpayer money on yet another education study (PDF)

The two warn that the recommendations, meant to show the way to achieve 100% proficiency, are certain to deliver one result: large spending increases: "To no one’s surprise, the report … says it will require about $2,500 per pupil, boosting the state’s per pupil average to $12,058 necessitating expenditures of almost $5 billion more tax dollars."

But will it work? There are so few examples to follow, they warn, that such a study would be "guess work at best."

Methodological problems abound:

An obvious question is how did the researchers estimate each district’s “necessary” spending level? They used a “professional judgment panel” to arrive at the amount needed to be spent to have all children score proficient in reading and math. According to the study “…panelists were instructed that their task was to identify what constitutes an “adequate” level of revenues for hypothetical schools and districts.” While panelists were not to build their “dream school”, they were asked to try to estimate how much money would be required to meet state standards for each district.

A review of the panel members reveals a largely self-selected group of teachers, principals, and school administrators. These are individuals with intimate knowledge of schools, but whose objectivity is questionable and most of whom probably believe that education funding is always too low.